CHICAGO TRIBUNE

     July 19, 2013





Shortly after Jimmy McDonnell was born, on Thanksgiving morning in 1960, doctors told his mother to "put him away."
"The doctor says, 'He'll never walk or amount to anything,'" Cathy McDonnell said, recalling the moment she learned that her son had Down syndrome. "I took it as a challenge."
McDonnell searched the Chicago area for activities that might help Jimmy learn and grow. When he was 5 years old, she heard about a teacher with the Chicago Park District who had organized a program for children with disabilities at West Pullman Park on the South Side. McDonnell enrolled Jimmy in the first class.
Three years later, Jimmy was standing in Soldier Field, competing in the softball throw and 50-yard dash at the first Special Olympics games.
"I was excited," Jimmy, now 52, said in a recent interview. "It was Soldier Field!"
Saturday marks the 45th anniversary of the Special Olympics, a competition modeled on the traditional Olympics but geared toward people with intellectual disabilities, which traces its roots back to the program at West Pullman.
Park District officials, Special Olympics volunteers, and athletes and their parents gathered Thursday in Hutchinson Field to celebrate the anniversary and remember how a young teacher's effort to draw children with disabilities to Chicago's parks grew into a movement that swept the country and eventually the world.
It was 1967, about five years after Eunice Kennedy Shriver started a day camp for children with disabilities at her Maryland farm. Armed with the financial wherewithal of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, Shriver had sent money to similar programs in other parts of the country, including Chicago.
Anne McGlone, then a 23-year-old physical education teacher for the Park District, used Shriver's grant to organize the recreational program at West Pullman.
The program was forward-thinking at a time when children with disabilities were often institutionalized or kept at home, out of public view.
"Parents who had children who were disabled, you didn't really hear about it," the former Park District teacher, now Anne Burke, an Illinois Supreme Court justice and wife of Ald. Edward Burke, said in a recent interview. "That was the atmosphere of society at the time."
She worried that the stigma surrounding disability was preventing parents from sending their children to participate in her program.
"I knew what these kids could do, but many people didn't," Burke said. "We really needed to put on a public event to show parents that were still nervous about bringing their kids to the park that these kids can do it."
She asked Shriver for a grant to fund a track meet. Shriver loved the idea and encouraged Burke to make it a national affair.
The Park District built a pool and track in Soldier Field, and a $25,000 grant from the Kennedy foundation helped cover the cost of transportation, awards, uniforms, meals and accommodations for the athletes at the nearby LaSalle Hotel. On July 20, 1968, an Olympic torch blazed over the stadium as 1,000 athletes from 26 states and Canada had their day in the spotlight.
But enthusiasm for the project was slow to build. Burke remembers calling around to area businesses in search of sponsors and finding that few were interested in backing the effort.
On the day of the games, "the stadium was empty," Burke said. "There were no people willing to come. They thought the kids were being put on display. The only people that were there were some parents and some volunteers," plus a few dozen sports figures and politicians.

Yasmin Arriaga, 21, right, dances with Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, center, at an event Thursday in Grant Park celebrating the Special Olympics’ 45th anniversary. The sports competition for people with disabilities was first held at Chicago’s Soldier Field in July 1968. Burke, at that time a physical education teacher for the city’s Park District, was integral to its development. (Carolyn Van Houten, Chicago Tribune / July 18, 2013)
Today, that ambivalence is all but gone. The Special Olympics is one of the world's most celebrated athletic traditions, with 4 million athletes in 170 countries, which hold more than 53,000 competitions every year.
Medals have never been the purpose. True to Burke's original vision, the games are still focused on giving people with disabilities the opportunity to participate in a sporting event and gain the social and educational benefits that come with it.
"The big thing is we teach them there are really no boundaries for them," said Joe Pecoraro, a retired Park District beach and pool manager who handled the swimming events for more than 30 years.
Cathy McDonnell credits the games with teaching her son the skills that allowed him to work for most of his adult life, first at a pizza joint, then at a warehouse and finally at the Cook County treasurer's office downtown. There he turned a 90-day temporary job into a decades-long career in the general office services department.
Jimmy McDonnell also learned how to get around on public transportation and became an avid reader.
"I don't think he would have done near as well as he's done without that socialization," McDonnell said. "It opened so many doors for him with schools and programs and work and everything. It's a very important part of Jimmy's life, and mine too."
Some see the games as the moment that parents of children with disabilities realized what was possible if they organized and pushed for opportunities for their children.
"Once parents started talking to each other, and understanding (what their kids were capable of), society and the country moved ahead," Burke said.
In that sense, Burke believes the games have achieved their goal.
"In the beginning, it was to teach skills to the children so that they could participate in activities, like going bowling with the family," Burke said. "I think that's been accomplished throughout the world, and people are aware."
Now she wants the focus of the games to shift. Alongside the elaborate international festivities that have taken place over the decade, Burke thinks the money raised by and for the games should be invested in long-term care facilities and pensions for the athletes.
"We have to think about once they're not children anymore, what are we doing for them," Burke said. "Every other athletic association has pension funds for their athletes. Why shouldn't we?"
Federal law provides for free public education for people with disabilities only until early adulthood.
"After they're 22, they have no place to go the rest of their life," Burke said. "We need to do something to make their quality of life better, as a society. I would like Special Olympics to be the catalyst."
It's a concern that hits home for Cathy McDonnell. The 72-year-old widow said she worries about what would happen to her son if she weren't around to care for him.
"As long as I'm alive, I'll be kicking and fighting for him," she said. "If something happens to me … I would just like something in place, just in case."
For now, McDonnell said, she's grateful for the many Special Olympics activities that are offered by the Chicago Park District, which administers 43 sporting events at 21 locations for about 5,000 athletes throughout the city.
A softball tournament had been planned for Thursday's anniversary celebration, but the extreme heat forced organizers to halt the games. Still, the athletes danced and socialized on the lawn before an enormous cake was presented and the group sang "Happy Birthday."
"You are my personal heroes," Burke said in an address to the athletes. "Your perseverance and beautiful attitude toward life has taught me and many others that we are all capable to excel, if given the opportunity through love and thoughtfulness."